Have You Really Been Working All Day?
Sep 24: Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
As usual, Bishop Barron has a great homily about today’s Gospel—
It’s a slightly different take than mine, but I do like how he says the fact that it makes you uncomfortable is a good thing.
Reading 1
Is 55:6-9
Seek the LORD while he may be found, call him while he is near. Let the scoundrel forsake his way, and the wicked his thoughts; let him turn to the LORD for mercy; to our God, who is generous in forgiving. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.
As Bishop Barron says above, today’s Gospel can be challenging. That’s because God’s ways are not our ways. We get stuck on our own parochial, even personal, view of what’s “fair,” what we “deserve.”
But as I’ve written many times on this site—
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 145:2-3, 8-9, 17-18
R. The Lord is near to all who call upon him.
Every day will I bless you,
and I will praise your name forever and ever.
Great is the LORD and highly to be praised;
his greatness is unsearchable.
R. The Lord is near to all who call upon him.
The LORD is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and of great kindness.
The LORD is good to all
and compassionate toward all his works.
R. The Lord is near to all who call upon him.
The LORD is just in all his ways
and holy in all his works.
The LORD is near to all who call upon him,
to all who call upon him in truth.
R. The Lord is near to all who call upon him.
Justice and mercy are both important virtues, but there is a ranking. God shows us mercy, not because it’s what we deserve; that would be mere justice. No, God goes beyond justice and offers us mercy we don’t deserve. He does this of His own free will, out of love for us. That is His prerogative, just like the landowner in today’s Gospel.
Reading 2
Phil 1:20c-24, 27a
Brothers and sisters: Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me life is Christ, and death is gain. If I go on living in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. And I do not know which I shall choose. I am caught between the two. I long to depart this life and be with Christ, for that is far better. Yet that I remain in the flesh is more necessary for your benefit.
Only, conduct yourselves in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ.
Paul debates between dying and going to heaven, and staying on earth to do more of God’s work. In the context of today’s Gospel, he’s like a fieldhand who’s thinking of cutting out early, before the work day is done.
But we shouldn’t look at our time on Earth as work. Spending time with others and spreading the Good News through our daily actions should be seen as a privilege. God lets us participate in salvation.
Again, cribbing a video I enjoyed this week, Catholic Kids Media has a great reflection on this idea—
Alleluia
Cf. Acts 16:14b
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Open our hearts, O Lord,
to listen to the words of your Son.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
This line is pulled from Acts of the Apostles, in reference to a wealthy woman named Lydia. We read about her way back in May. She was a “worshiper of God,” meaning she believed in the Hebrew God, but wasn’t Jewish herself.
If a gentile at that time was able to open her heart to an itinerate Jewish preacher, we should be able to, too.
Gospel
Mt 20:1-16a
Jesus told his disciples this parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. Going out about nine o'clock, the landowner saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, 'You too go into my vineyard, and I will give you what is just.'
So they went off. And he went out again around noon, and around three o'clock, and did likewise. Going out about five o'clock, the landowner found others standing around, and said to them, 'Why do you stand here idle all day?' They answered, 'Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, 'You too go into my vineyard.'
When it was evening the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Summon the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and ending with the first.' When those who had started about five o'clock came, each received the usual daily wage.
So when the first came, they thought that they would receive more, but each of them also got the usual wage. And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, saying, 'These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day's burden and the heat.'
He said to one of them in reply, 'My friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?' Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last."
This is a tricky one, because we all have an innate sense of fairness, but we’re also all calibrated a little differently. Is it “fair” to be paid the same for fewer hours? Is it “fair” to demand more than your original agreement?
Maybe it’s an American thing, but most people I know tend to identify with the morning workers; they resent the latecomers. I think that’s backwards.
Take St. Augustine, who led a life of debauchery and greed for over thirty years before repenting. That seems pretty late in life to convert. He did live to be 75, so he was kinda like the mid-day workers, right?
Except…
People still read Confessions and City of God 1600 years later. In a sense, Augustine has been working in the field for the majority of human history. Only the Apostles and a few others can claim to have been harvesting for the Lord much longer than that.
We are the late evening hires.1 Many, many Christians have been putting in the work long before we arrived.
And yet, we still have heaven to look forward to, right?
Where parable falls short of reality is, the vineyard owner is offering only a day’s wage. It’s not crazy to think of someone cutting that in half, or doubling it, or whatever.
But what God is really offering is so much more than that. He’s offering infinite and unending love. You can’t divide it, you can’t multiply it. It simply is. So, yeah, we all get the same reward in the end, but that’s because we all get everything worth having in the end.
We don’t know when the second coming is; we might end up being the mid-day workers, or even the morning shift, after all.